Published
Oct 5, 2022
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Hyve fast-tracking to post-Covid recovery, sells Turkish events arm

Published
Oct 5, 2022

Within days of issuing a positive trading update to shareholders, Hyve Group was back with further details of its progression, as well as news of a disposal in Turkey.


Photo: Sandra Halliday


The global events business, which stages Pure London, Scoop and Moda, said trading for the year ended 30 September showed a “full revenue recovery” in the second half and it saw a “strong trading trajectory” going into FY23.

The group said it has delivered revenue for FY22 of around £122m compared to a pandemic-restricted £22 million. And that’s excluding revenues from discontinued operations in respect of Russia, Ukraine and Turkey, “having successfully run a full schedule of events outside China in FY22”. 

Hyve said this represents a more than 85% recovery on a pro-forma basis compared to FY19, or more than 90% excluding China “where there remains considerable disruption to event schedules”.

“The speed of recovery has surpassed expectations and combined with strong like-for-like customer spend demonstrates that the demand for high-quality market leading events continues to grow,” the company said Wednesday. 

“This has resulted in another year of headline profitability with less reliance on insurance proceeds, which have reduced to £19 million (2021: £65 million), and a return to positive headline EBITDA without insurance proceeds”.
  
It said the pace of in-person event recovery accelerated throughout FY22. Despite disruption caused by the Omicron variant in the first half of the year, revenue recovery compared to FY19 pro-forma revenues1 was still around 75% in H1. This increased in the second half to around 100%, even without the group's events in China in the final quarter of the financial year which did not take place due to Covid-related restrictions.
 
And the Turkish disposal? Hyve said it has agreed to sell Hyve Fuarcılık Anonim Şirketi and its subsidiaries for up to £8 million to ICA (JV) Limited. It said the move was part of move to streamline its portfolio, “to focus on market-leading events in advanced economies”. 
 
The group will receive consideration of £2m on completion, less customary working capital adjustments, and between £4m and £6m of deferred consideration, payable over the six-year period until December 2028 based on the profitability of the Turkish Business. Hyve said it intends to use the proceeds to reduce the group's net debt.

Mark Shashoua, CEO of Hyve Group said: "It is clear that our business has now almost fully recovered from the turbulence of the last two years and, in many cases, we are pleased to have delivered significant growth compared to pre-Covid performance.

"The continued growth of customer like-for-like spend reinforces our strategy of focusing on only market-leading events as customers are clearly directing marketing budgets towards key events in their sectors.

In terms of our geographical focus, we continued to concentrate our capital on high growth industries in advanced economies. The sale of the Turkish business announced today is another milestone in this direction.”

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